China's Minority Peoples - The Dongxiangs

The Dongxiang Nationality has a population of 373,872, most in the Dongxiang Autonomous County of Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province. The rest live scattered in Qinghai Province, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

In history, the Dongxiangs were called "Dongxiang Huihui", "Dongxiang Mongols" or "Dongxiang Aborigines", which referred in general to the Moslems living in the Central Asian areas. After the founding of new China, they were generally called the Dongxiang Nationality.

The Dongxiang language resembles to the Mongolian and belongs to the Mongolian group of the Altaic family. It has no written form. Hence, many Dongxiang people have a good command of Chinese.

Located between the Yaohe and Daxia rivers and in the south of the Yellow River, the Dongxiang area is lined by mountains and gullies. Potatoes from Dongxiang are sweet and contain high granulose. Other famous products are watermelon, pears and apricots.

The Dongxiangs have much the same customs, habits and faiths as the Huis in the northwest of China Everybody loves to sing folk Hua'er songs to express love, freedom and happiness. Among the Dongxiangs, there are many epics and tales. The longest and the most famous are Meilagahei & Ma Chenglong and the Tale the White Wings. Autumn is the festival season of the villagers. They celebrate their good harvest with art performances and competitions.